The Manchurian Candidate is a favorite of my dad's and I hadn't seen it until just recently. I was blown away! The movie is well written, thought provoking, and dealt with a lot of (at the time) topical issues that still have relevance in the political climate of today.

This movie is not appropriate for young children. I enjoyed this movie. There is violence; but no sex. It effectively shows how horrendous war and murder are. The story is strong. The characters are developed. It is well acted. The script maintains the suspense throughout the whole film. It shows the importance of wrong and right in life. It promotes have strong moral values and treating each other fairly with justice. It appreciates the freedom of a democracy.

This whole flick is all about Angela Lansbury. Just one of the best acting jobs of a mother from hell, really outshines Sinatra and Leigh, but not her son, Laurence Harvey and her husband who does a good job as the 1950s wacky right wing fringe, championed by Joseph McCarthy.

With the Siberian satsuma in power, time for another look at this classic of fear and loathing in the U.S.A. Angela Lansbury's performance is stunning, but Lawrence Harvey's cold, unsympathetic war hero with something gnawing at his heart makes the film.

A remarkable film that shows that it was possible to program people to do things against their own normal civil and societal moral code. If I remember correctly, this kind of mind altering experiments was also conducted in Canada at McGill University on psychiatric patients without their permission or knowledge.

From about half the comments, I can't tell if your patrons are clueless, or if the library's web devs are crossing wires with your data: Denzel Washington? Meryl Streep? Jonathan Demme? Huh?

Thankfully, when my turn came up in the hold queue, this was the 1962 version, and Axelrod and Frankenheimer do a fantastic, almost Hitchcockian job analyzing the bond between between abusive mothers and their obedient sons. Lansbury makes my ex-smother-in-law look like an ice cream cone by comparison.

The graphic design of the titling is also wonderful, the clipping throughout the nightmare flashback scenes not to be missed, and even though I fell asleep twice while trying to watch the film in its entirety two nights in a row, I still highly recommend it. Excellent film for analyzing race/gender/visual culture promulgated by Hollywood through that era and how Cold War politics eerily connect to our present.

While her performance easily rivals Eva Marie Saint in North by Northwest, it is curious that the writer and the director do such a poor job understanding the psychology of Janet Leigh's character? In real life, boys, running around acting like a rampaging two-year-old will not induce a beautiful, intelligent woman to dump her fianceé and and dedicate her life to dabbing your wounds with her saliva. Not even if you are Frank Sinatra. Maybe especially if.

This film has the most evil villainess in Hollywood history. The Wicked Witch gets more quotes, the Evil Queen has more mirrors, Cruella DeVille has more spots - but no villainess comes close to Angela Lansbury's Mommy-not-so-Dearest. The fact that Sinatra and Janet Leigh are practically footnotes to this film illustrates the power that the two central characters take over. And James Gregory as Senator Iselin does his turn as the poster-child for the Republicans. The remake is what it is - when we want to see the Real Thing, THIS is the version to watch. The new Criterion release's extras are even better.

Quotes

Raymond Shaw: "My dear girl, have you ever noticed that the human race is divided into two distinct and irreconcilable groups: those that walk into rooms and automatically turn television sets on, and those that walk into rooms and automatically turn them off. The trouble is that they end up marrying each other."